In December 2007 I posted my prediction that Barack Obama would win the 2008 election and then we’d all be depressed a year later. The last paragraph:
In December 2009 we will suffer a massive nationwide psychological depression. People assume that all of their problems can be blamed on George W. Bush personally. When the hated King Bush II has been back to Texas for a year and the beloved Obama has been in office for a year, people will look around for a quick status check. They will still be stuck in horrific traffic. They will still be paying insane prices for crummy housing in bleak, lonely communities. Their children will be getting a terrible education at the local public school, perhaps developing to about 15 percent of their potential. If in a hip urban area, criminals will still be smashing their car windows and taking their GPS. They will realize that virtually none of the things that are unpleasant about their life have anything to do with the federal government, except for the war in Iraq, which a quick check of the headlines will reveal that we are still losing.
Now that Barack Obama is preparing to give his first State of the Union speech, I’m wondering if this prediction was accurate. Has Iraq turned into a stable democracy, contrary to my prediction? If so, is the replacement of Iraq by an expensive losing war in Afghanistan equally depressing?
I certainly did not predict the big stock market collapse of 2008 (depressing) and the subsequent transfer of most of America’s remaining wealth to Wall Street (extremely depressing to everyone outside of Manhattan). So we’d have to subtract out any depression caused by the financial collapse and wealth transfer from depression caused by Congress and Obama’s inability to improve American lives in the ways expected by enthusiastic voters.
So… was the prediction basically accurate or not? (I’m still smarting from my inaccurate prediction that Democrat Martha Coakley would win the Massachusetts Senate election.)
[Separately, the peasants will not be able to fly their little airplanes while the King addresses his subjects. The FAA has issued a temporary flight restriction for 8-11 pm on the night of the speech, forbidding people from taking off or landing at the little airports near Washington, D.C. Got a $50 million Gulfstream G-550 parked at Dulles? There’s an exception that will let you take off for Davos or Aspen.
It could be worse. If you’re a flight school in northwest Washington State, this Olympics TFR imposes a two-month moratorium on flight training. So you get to relax for two months with no revenue. As with other security-based TFRs, the government is not going to compensate the flight schools or airplane owners for loss of revenue and loss of use.]
This Olympics TFR is absurd beyond belief. News flash for the DHS: nobody cares about the winter Olympics. Certainly not terrorists. And if they did, and somehow devised a diabolical scheme for violating the laws of physics to turn a Diamond Katana into a WMD, they would do it during one of the few big event days. How does this justify a continuous two-month TFR?
> As with other security-based TFRs, the government is not going to compensate
> the flight schools or airplane owners for loss of revenue and loss of use.
I’m not attorney, but it seems to me that there could be an argument made that this violates the Constitution’s takings clause ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucas_v._South_Carolina_Coastal_Council says regulations that cause property to lose value are “takings,” but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahoe-Sierra_Preservation_Council,_Inc._v._Tahoe_Regional_Planning_Agency says that doesn’t apply to temporary regulations).
Yes, you are basically accurate, and I’d like even to dispute that much wealth was transferred to Wall St. by the feds (or at least, they’ve gotten most of it back). More money on net was transferred to Detroit, Wisconsin Ave (Fannie), and McLean (Freddie) than to Wall St. But yet, I view a lot of the backlash against Obama personally to be extremely displaced anger about the vicissitudes of life.
On the other hand, you paint a pretty bleak picture of life. It’s not so bad, really!
I do hope that they station a large, round-the-clock force of heavily armed guards around all those northwest Washington Cessnas and Pipers. As anyone who’s taken flight training knows, the door locks on those things are pretty wimpy. Some terrorist could jimmy one open and be flying in a jiffy, killing — just how many people can you kill with a Skyhawk?
Come to think of it, just prohibiting flight training in the TFR won’t keep the Olympic spectators safe. Someone could fly a Skyhawk in from outside and crash it into a crowd. They need to make the no-fly zone larger than the maximum range of a general aviation with full tanks — and really they should factor in the possibility that terrorists might extend the range with some jerrycans of avgas — and they might have accomplices waiting with jerrycans on backcountry roads you could land and take off from! The spectators won’t be safe unless they ground every general aviation plane in the country!!!!
Please, oh please, beam me up, Scotty.
I was in the US during Christmas, and didn’t see a single thing that would lead me to feel optimistic. Friends and family out of work, up to their necks in credit card debt, living on high-fructose corn syrup, and somehow believing that personal bankruptcy is a parachute option.
Now, back in Spain, I also don’t see a single thing that would lead me to feel optimistic here either (unless you’re an air traffic controller. 🙂 Driving to work, I see more and more “For Rent” signs (it’s estimated that 25% of local businesses in this town have closed), and increased levels of aggression on the streets. Zapatero believes he can public-debt finance his way out, and justifies it with, “Look, Obama’s doing it!”
Where’s this all headed? (I know where I’m headed — Singapore.)
Wait a second, Americans are so naive they would expect a president to turnaround the world economy in 12 months, distribute wealth in a reasonable way AND fix the climate? Oh and in between those solve the Middle East problems?
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Andreas
Andreas: Americans did/do expect a lot out of their government. Now that the government is nearly 50 percent of the U.S. economy, I’m not sure it is unreasonable for Americans to expect a lot. Furthermore, politicians tend to make rather grand and comprehensive promises. So I guess my original posting could be rephrased “How many Americans do we think actually believed in Congress’s and Obama’s campaign promises?”
I would have thought GPS theft to be a thing of the past, maybe next year. Obviously this has nothing to do with the U.S. government or president. It’s because they are becoming so cheap.
By the way what do you think will be the sentiment in a year about senator Brown accomplishment. Being cynical about politician is so easy, it’s almost not fun. The key word being almost.
Jean-Francois: I don’t think GPS theft is declining. The Logan Airport parking lot has big signs, recently installed, instructing customers not to leave GPS in the car. As far as Senator Brown’s accomplishments, as the Democrats still have control of both Congress and the White House I don’t think that anything can be expected of a Republican.
Wow, I’m crying now. I woke up at 5am, drug myself through the 12 degree midwestern weather to my IT job, got a call from my editor at the local newspaper saying they want to use my photo for a leade in the human interest section but $30 is just too much money for them in this economy (They paid the writer $.20c/word..apparently a picture is not worth a thousand words). I don’t blame king bush, but it would take a very long time to break even on a few SB800’s and a D200 at this rate.
In December I received a warning for driving through a rich suburb with a Scion instead of a Lexus (or maybe it was a burned out headlight). I had 10 days to fix it, have any police dept sign off on it, and fax them the form. I replaced the light the next day and took the car to my local police department. A very good friend and police sergeant, did the paperwork and faxed it to the police dept that issued me the ticket. I watched him send the fax. It did not fail. This morning I received a letter stating that I never fixed the light, missed a court date, and now must pay an almost $200 fine and win 3 points on my license (increasing insurance rates). I have the original paperwork. The PD that lost the fax basically said pay the ticket or get a really good lawyer. Its like I need to be a lawyer just to drive in the suburbs now. Was the person on the receiving end of that fax on furlough? That was the excuse when it took the state more than 70 days to issue me an EMT license after I sent them my credentials. Glad that isn’t my primary source of income.
Now add these flight restrictions…I don’t understand how people are this dumb. Are they really this bad? But then…medicine…it seems like it SHOULD be part of the government.
A friend was in the ER recently for pneumonia and a secondary infection from that. On two occasions during her 14 hour stay in the ER a technician came up to her and said “OK I’m here to take you for your wrist X-ray”. My friend said “I have pneumonia, I don’t need a wrist Xray!” The technician actually argued!!!!
So now when you are seriously ill in the hospital you must defend yourself against incompetence as well. I wonder who needed that Xray and got pneumonia meds instead. I wanna be a doctor, but I don’t know how you can help people with that level of blundering in your workplace. I’m not being sarcastic…I literally don’t know.
I can’t believe that Americans are that stupid. But I do believe they could be that apathetic, that depressed, and so indifferent to being alive that they just don’t care enough to read that paper twice and think “hey, I’ve got the wrong patient.”
Phil once wrote that smart towns are getting smarter and dumb towns are getting dumber. Is this also true of nations? Is there someplace we can all go to be free of this level of idiocy and frustration? New Zealand?
Followup question from my last post: Is there anyone who reads this blog that would be able to keep their private sector jobs if they repeatedly demonstrated this level of performance? Do you think Google tolerates this?
Have to dispute the part about massive transfers to Detroit vs Wall Street: I’m not even going to look up the numbers, but the automotive industry (which employs middle-class people[1] to produce an actual product) received a tiny fraction of the subsidies and guarantees handed over to the financial industry (yes, including Fannie / Freddie / AIG), which is what most people mean when they say “Wall Street.”
Also, Michigan been a net federal taxpayer for decades (#37 in terms of dollars received vs dollars spent in 2006). Comparing the number of federal employees in this table http://www.theyworkforus.org/documents/FedEmployeesStats.pdf
with population gives some interesting results:
People per federal employee (not counting defense contractors):
Michigan 151
Illinois 116
Massachusetts 115
Texas 96
And this only counts direct employees, not the massive and growing government-funded defense complex. If any “small government” Texans would like to move some of Texas’ 253,000 federal jobs or federally-funded General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon facilities to Michigan, there is ample office space and a highly educated workforce available.
A LOT went wrong with the automotive industry, but it’s a huge mistake to see it simply as the fault of the UAW or even the automotive industry: it’s emblematic of what is happening to Private Middle-Class Employment of American Citizens. You will note that the sectors which fared better are:
* Government-subsidized casino finance
* Government-funded defense contracting
* Government-subsidized non-tradable services (healthcare & education)
* Non-tradable services performed at minimum wage by illegal immigrants (Wal-Mart / poultry processing).
[1] Not just UAW assembly-line workers, but thousands of engineers and managers and other white-collar people both at the manufacturers and in the supply base.
Congratulations on an outstanding forecast.
Kings traditionally use given names. Thus the incumbent is Barack I and his predecessor on the Greenback Throne was George III. You have to include Washington in the George count because the basic fiction associated with kingship involves the continuous descent of legitimacy from illustrious predecessors … usually all the way back to Gods of some kind.